Dead Celebz

Death, in and of itself, isn’t tragic – it’s inevitable, and one of the only things that truly everyone on earth has in common. We view it as a tragedy because of the ways it impacts our own lives. We typically don’t mourn the loss of people we don’t know, whether they live down the street or across the globe, because it doesn’t change the way we live on a day to day basis. But when we lose a loved one – even a pet – it devastates us because it forces us to change and confront our lack of control. The impact artists and public figures can have on people they don’t know, simply by way of their talent, can be profound. Because their work takes on a meaning that’s specific to your experience and makes you feel like you know them, even though they’ve never actually participated in your life, it makes sense that an artist dying could have an emotional impact on you. That said, over the past few years, some aspects of public reaction to celebrity deaths have caused me confusion and surprise.

The issue initially struck me upon the death of Michael Jackson back in 2009. This particular death had a lot of subplots because Jackson had become such a different character than the one he initially became famous for. The Michael Jackson we loved – the cultural icon who entertained us better than anyone else and transcended the boundaries of race, gender, sexuality, and genre for nearly all of his first 35 years (the Jackson 5 were signed to Motown Records when Michael was 10) – had already been all but dead for nearly 15 years before he overdosed on anesthesia medicine. That beloved figure was replaced by an equally confusing, disturbing, and reclusive one, defined by the strangeness of excessive plastic surgery, short, hard-to-believe marriages to Elvis Presley’s daughter and his “dermatology nurse,” living in an amusement park, and allegedly molesting children. The closest thing to an MJ comeback was the 2001 single You Rock My World which – ironically – didn’t. By that time, whatever hope anyone had that the “old Michael” would ever reemerge was gone.

I know it sounds callous, but when I heard that Michael Jackson died I felt relieved. His death allowed us to refocus on the great things he accomplished without having to worry about the other stuff – the damage that had been done to him, and that he’d likely perpetuated onto others. For years prior to his death, we were all faced with the conflict of knowing we’d already lost the man who made that great art, but still seeing this “white ghoulish creature” in the news every now and again, reminding us of his tragic fall. Upon his death, we were finally able to resolve that conflict. At last, we could walk down memory lane without tripping on a reminder of the ugly present. In a sense, death was the only redemption left for him.

The aspects of public reaction to MJ’s death that surprised me most were how truly sad people seemed (given his eroded creative relevance), how long the public mourning continued (given the time that had already passed since his discomforting transformation became the status quo), and the subsequent outrage at the revelation that his death had come at the hands of a negligent, irresponsible physician. To be clear, Conrad Murray was undoubtedly practicing outside the realm of legal and ethical medicine and deserves punishment for that … but Michael made himself an addict. Nevertheless, it felt like in order to fully forgive him we needed him to be the victim of someone else‘s villainy. That distinction should probably have fallen more on his abusive father Joe, but confronting Joe’s impact would have brought us back to Michael’s fall, which we were eager to forget.

The most recent celebrity death of international note was Whitney Houston. Like Michael Jackson’s death, there was more to the public mourning of Whitney than just the loss of a transcendent, beloved artist because she had also publicly fallen from grace. However, unlike Michael’s, her death was not surprising because of her widely known drug use – and it didn’t feel like a relief. You’d think there would be some element of that, given how tortured a person must be to require constant medication in spite of their seemingly ideal circumstances (fame, fortune, talent, beauty, etc.) But with Whitney and others (i.e. Aaliyah, Kurt Cobain) the tragedy of their death was that their potential – and our ability to enjoy that potential – went unfulfilled. Though Whitney was further along in her career than the other two, she was still young enough for us to imagine her exorcising her demons and making a triumphant comeback that could be sustained into old age (see Aretha Franklin). The fact that it will never happen compounds sadness with disappointment.

To me, the strangest commonality of Michael Jackson and Whitney Houston’s deaths – which probably says more about our current relationship with the idea of celebrity than anything else – is the fact that their memorial services were televised productions. In today’s culture, the expectation of celebrities is that every aspect of their life is subject to broadcast for our entertainment – this is never clearer than when one dies. In both Michael and Whitney’s cases there was an unsavory, fairly transparent implication that their death was an unmatchable financial and PR win for everyone else who held a stake in their success. This not only highlights the greed and shamelessness of show business, but serves as a reminder of the divide that “celebrity” causes between entertainers’ BRANDS and their identity as human beings. To watch a brand flourish (MJ was the top-selling recording artist of 2009) at the literal expense of the human life that birthed it – is bizarre and disturbing. Moreover, assuming these human beings did have anyone in their life left who truly loved them separate from their public accomplishments, I’d imagine those people would feel their opportunity to appropriately mourn and appreciate them had been soiled.

I think this is the aspect of reaction to celebrity deaths that  gives me the most trouble – I feel uncomfortable with the public display of sadness at the loss of someone you didn’t know. The reason it feels weird to me is that in most cases your relationship with an artist or public figure after their death is no different than when they were alive. The piece of them that you loved – their art, music, words, or impactful actions – will live on forever, and in most cases in a way that you can continue to enjoy and relate to just as you always have. While it makes sense to feel attachment to them, to react to a stranger’s passing as if you knew them trivializes the mourning of the people who actually did know them, the mourning of people you actually knew, and the mourning of people who died in more honorable pursuits.

When I die, I hope the people I’ve known and loved remember me fondly. I hope they’ll gather together in consolation of each other and in remembrance of my virtues. I hope they’re willing to overlook my flaws, if only for a while. Though it sometimes makes me uncomfortable, I also understand that a celebrity’s death is often the only opportunity people take to truly pay tribute to them – to celebrate their body of work, their impact on others, and to forgive them of their inevitable missteps in work or in life. I know that ultimately that’s a positive thing, but it might feel even more positive if we all made it a point to show appreciation of each other’s gifts and accomplishments – and tried harder to forgive each other of our faults and struggles – while we’re still here.

Fandom and Culture: One Man’s Regional Analysis, Devoid of Cumbersome Facts

In the sports world, the New York / Boston rivalry is widely known, and in the aftermath of our most recent Superbowl and with the upcoming baseball season upon us, it will continue to be discussed in the coming months as much as ever. In the media narrative about this rivalry – especially regarding baseball – New York represents the cocky Goliath who draws players from all over the world to the bright lights and big city, while Boston represents the team of the scrappy home-grown working man. The truth of the rivalry is that because the two cities are so near each other, the teams in each town always play in the same division. That means they play each other more often, and have for years. More meetings means more memorable moments, more historical grudges, and the contemptuous familiarity of the Hatfields and McCoys, the Bloods and the Crips, the Montagues and the Capulets, the Sharks and the Jets (I know I know, West Side Story is just an adaptation of Romeo & Juliet, they were just the only rivals I could think of – GET OFF MY BACK!). In those stories, the moral is always that they’re not so different after all – and in the case of the actual sports organizations, they’re not. But what I never realized before recently is how that narrative is reflected in the nature of these two fan bases and helps explain the cultures of these regions.

I moved from New York to Eliot, Maine in October of 2010. Because I root for the Mets (not Boston’s prime baseball rival – despite this), the Giants (not New England’s prime football rival, despite this and this), and the Knicks (not the Celtics prime basketball rival … because they stink), I didn’t come here with the feeling that I was moving into enemy territory (like I would if I had moved to Phila-stupid-delphia). I did know, however, that I was moving to a place with rabid sports fans, where even the casual moms and pops pull hard for their guys (though I did notice a sudden swell in Bruins fandom about three weeks before they won the cup last year, and most diehard Red Sox fans will describe a similar pattern – the “pink hat” phenomenon – when that team’s bandwagon overflowed during its historic championship run in 2004). But the devotion of their fans wasn’t completely foreign – New York sports fans are some of the craziest, most intense fans in the world too. Both cities even have multiple huge media outlets dedicated entirely to talking about sports. But since moving here and getting to see New England fandom in person, I’ve recognized a more subtle difference in the way these fan bases interact emotionally with the teams and their sports.

I’m a member of a Facebook group called SportsForum, made up of an extremely diverse group of passionate, thoughtful sports fans mostly based in New York. There are people like me who root for the Giants and Mets, people who root for the Yankees and Jets, and people who follow the more common Mets/Jets & Yankees/Giants pairings (which date back to the days when the football teams played in those baseball teams’ stadiums). Most of us root for the Knicks and a few root for random other NBA teams – as far as I know no one roots for the Nets, even though they’re right across the river and about to move into this monstrosity in Brooklyn. A few chime in on boxing, MMA, soccer, tennis, hockey and even golf. As diverse as their sports interests and team alliances are, so are their backgrounds, spanning the spectrum of ethnicity, socioeconomic standing, employment, relationship status, etc. (though truth be told, there’s only one or two women who actively participate, and to my knowledge there’s no openly gay members, but I try to be the enforcer when people break the Grant Hill rules). What they all have in common is a thirst for knowledge. They are passionate about their teams, but seem to know everything about the rest of the teams in the league too. Perhaps stemming from the Yankees (and to a degree the Mets and Jets) penchant for active pursuit of almost all high-profile free agents, they have a deep interest in knowing which players in each league “have game.” There’s a feeling, across sports, that the great ones always raise their game on the biggest stage, whether they’re on the home team or visiting – and New York is unquestionably that stage. In my opinion, SportsForum pretty accurately represents the New York sports fan – they love their team and want them to succeed, but they also have a finger on the pulse of what’s happening elsewhere (especially Mets fans, who often have nothing left to root for by Memorial Day). We always have an eye out for the great ones so we can make them our own, whether they end up wearing our team’s jersey or not.

Last night I went to Mojo’s in Portsmouth, NH, a BBQ joint and sports bar with 10+ TVs that always show sports – usually the local teams (Red Sox, Patriots, Celtics, Bruins). On this particular occasion I wanted to watch the nationally televised NBA game between the Miami Heat and the Oklahoma City Thunder – two of the best three teams in the league, playing in what may well be a Championship preview. I asked the bartender to put on ESPN. She switched to the Bruins game and said “this one?” I said no, ESPN … for basketball. She looked over at another TV that had the Celtics game on as if to say “the basketball game’s already on,” but dutifully cruised the channel guide to ESPN. When she got to it she incredulously said “Oklahoma City vs. Miami??” I said yes, giving myself away as an outsider (even though I own a home two towns over, have lived there over a year, and eat wings at Mojo’s like it’s my freaking job). Now, I don’t mean to say that this bartender accurately represents the sports IQ of the region – but if nothing else it paints a pretty clear picture of how rarely anyone asks to see out of town games (even when they’re nationally televised … it’s not like I was asking for the satellite feed from Oklahoma) – all she knew was that those were two far-away cities that aren’t here.

Back in January I was invited to a friend’s house to watch the Pats’ playoff game against the Denver Tebows. It was kind of a big invitation for me, because I’d come over to watch another Pats game the previous season, rooted against them, and they’d subsequently lost. I hadn’t been invited to any more games after that for more than a year, so I could tell they saw me as a maloik (or maybe just a boner-kill for their fandemonium). At any rate, this time around I promised I wouldn’t root against the Pats, and even brought a gigantic whoopie pie (a New England dessert delicacy that’s pretty much just a big one of these) that said “Big Whoop, It’s Just the Broncos” as a peace offering.

I was also told that everyone at this party would be asked to share their favorite Patriots player from the 80s or 90s. As a Giants fan, I didn’t have much to offer, so I decided instead to tell a story about one of my favorite players of the 80s/90s and relate it to their team.

“Before Tom Brady replaced Drew Bledsoe and rose from obscurity to glory under head coach Bill Belichick, the 1989-90 Giants lost their franchise quarterback, Phil Simms, who went down with a season-ending injury. The team was forced to play behind back-up QB Jeff Hostettler, who prior to that had played at wide receiver and on special teams just to stay  on the team’s roster. The team rallied behind Hostettler, and thanks to his composure and leadership, in addition to the brilliant scheming of Defensive Coordinator BILL BELICHICK, the team won the SuperBowl. Hooray!”

They weren’t amused. Even when talking about the same situation that happened to their team, under the same coach who they now love, they didn’t care. It was the Pats or nothing. That’s how the fan are in New England: they know everything about every player on each of their teams – everyone in their minor league system, every benchwarmer from 1996, the 4th receiver and backup Right Tackle – but aside from the top national figures, they don’t seem to know or care very much about any other teams or their players. I think that is, in large part, a reflection on their culture. People who live in New England are mostly from New England – their population is extremely homogeneous, the families stay in the same area for generations, and everyone roots for the same teams. To make it in New England is to stick around and be known to the people in your community. Those are YOUR PEOPLE. As fans, they look for the same qualities. They love scrappy underdogs who climb the ranks through hard work (Dustin Pedroia, Wes Welker, Danny Woodhead, young Tom Brady, Larry Bird), determination, a “do anything to help the team win” mentality (exemplified by multi-position players like Julian Edelman and Kevin Youkilis), and loyalty.

p.s. – I know I named all white players there, and I thought about getting into it from that angle, but they really do love David Ortiz, Pedro Martinez, Paul Pierce, Ray Allen, and other non-white athletes too.

In New York, the culture is completely different. Diversity is the status quo, and most of the people you meet come from somewhere else (either inside or outside of the country). You don’t expect to know anyone – and if you do run into someone you know on the street it’s shocking. It’s one of the only cities in the world that people from all over the globe migrate to, and everyone there gains access to cultures different than their own. That’s WHY they go there. In many ways it parallels their view of sports superstars – the best and brightest in the art, music, theater, advertising, and financial world are expected to give it a go there, because to really “make it” means doing so in New York.

It’s clear to me in writing this that I’m still a New Yorker at heart – probably more so in my sports fandom than in any other way. But I do love it here in New England. I don’t know if I’ll ever be seen as a local, or if I’ll ever totally feel like one – but if I can find a way to maintain my New York thirst for knowledge and openness to people unlike me while being as good a neighbor, as loyal a friend, and as hard a worker as the people around me, that would be a good place to be.

Regarding the Political Spectrum

Here, from the sage and unimpeachable wisdom of Wikipedia, is an abridged history of the original political parties in The United States (plus a little bonus at the end).

The United States Constitution has never formally addressed political parties. The Founding Fathers did not originally intend for American politics to be partisan. In Federalist Papers No. 9 and 10, Alexander Hamilton and James Madison wrote specifically about the dangers of domestic political factions. In addition, the first President of the United States, George Washington, was not a member of any political party at the time of his election or throughout his tenure as president. Furthermore, he hoped that political parties would not be formed, fearing conflict and stagnation.

The First Party System of The United States featured the Federalist Party and the Democratic-Republican Party. The Federalist Party grew from Washington’s Secretary of the Treasury, Alexander Hamilton, who favored a strong united central government, close ties to Britain, an effective banking system, and close links between the government and men of wealth. The Democratic-Republican Party was founded by James Madison and Thomas Jefferson, who strongly opposed Hamilton’s agenda. Following the end of the First Party System, The Era of Good Feelings under President James Monroe (1816-24) marked a brief period in which partisanship was minimal. These good feelings inspired the first short-lived Era of Internal Improvements, which ended with The Panic of 1837.

BONUS: The Panic of 1837 was a financial crisis in the United States built on a speculative fever. The end of the Second Bank of the United States had produced a period of runaway inflation, but on May 10, 1837 in New York City, every bank began to accept payment only in gold and silver coinage, forcing a dramatic, deflationary backlash. This was based on the assumption by former president Andrew Jackson that the government was selling land for state bank notes of questionable value. The Panic was followed by a five-year depression, with the failure of banks and then-record-high unemployment levels.

SOUND FAMILIAR?! I mean seriously, has anything changed at all?? I think the main difference is that we’re not as good at naming eras anymore. Despite the discovery of electricity, the industrial revolution, the end of slavery, two World Wars, the Civil Rights movement, the Cold War, and the fact that everyone in America now CARRIES A CORDLESS PHONE THAT ALSO SERVES AS A COMPUTER THAT BLASTS EVERYTHING YOU COULD EVER NEED TO KNOW DIRECTLY INTO YOUR POCKET FROM OUTER SPACE … the divided views of the role of government – and the nature of our financial meltdowns – haven’t changed one bit.

Anyway, the reason I was wikipedia-ing the origins of political parties (in case you were wondering), is because I think they’re dumb.

Let me elaborate.

In the aftermath of Occupy Wall Street (and I hate to talk about it in the past tense, but the fervor from a few months ago has undeniably given way to other issues), one of the biggest takeaways for me was the idea that politicians have too much incentive to serve constituencies other than the people who elect them. At the time I was thinking mostly about the corporations who have been given free reign to buy out these “public servants,” get them elected and keep them elected so they’ll continue to serve those corporations’ interests – but it also caused me to question the point of political parties. We live in one of the most politically polarized times in our country’s history. At the State of the Union address, Congress is completely segregated by their party affiliation, and the members of the President’s party give him a STANDING OVATION after everything he says while the other party sulks and occasionally even BOOS. It’s absurd. We wouldn’t accept that kind of behavior from freaking Kindergartners, but it happens every year in the most hallowed halls of our nation.

The thing is, the citizens of our country aren’t nearly that divided. Political opinions in this country are just as diverse as our tastes in music, food, TV shows, religions, sexual desires, and fashion sense. The idea that any two people’s beliefs could possibly fall in line about the constitutional interpretation of marriage, reproductive rights, states’ rights, taxation, immigration, foreign policy, religion, education, AND global warming is ludicrous – as ludicrous as one party somehow falling in favor of both the Right to Life and the Death Penalty (I really wanted to name an equally egregious example of liberal hypocrisy, but unfortunately the best I could find was “Al Gore’s carbon footprint”).

Circling back, the people who seemed most threatened by Occupy Wall Street (those who identify as staunchly Conservative – particularly fiscally – and people who perceive themselves as either being in “the 1%” or having access to it) dismissed the movement as class warfare, socialism, and leftist ramblings by smelly, entitled hippybabies. At the same time, there were people questioning the difference between OWS and the Tea Party. Now, there are obviously HUGE differences between these groups – too many to list – but there was also overlap, and that’s the point I’m getting at. Even this guy and this guy can agree on something.

The reason political parties have become so polarized, it seems, is to make us choose a side so we have a rooting interest. But unlike sports, where the rooting interests are usually arbitrarily based on where you come from (I mean, would anyone CHOOSE to be a Mets fan?) and even when they feel heavy, the stakes are actually pretty low … choosing a political side has significant consequences.

So why couldn’t we do away with the two-party system? We could leave the primary system alone, but instead of a party-based process it would just be a group of candidates who have as complex and diverse a set of views on how best to run the country as we do. There would be a series of debates like there are now, and as the process went along unpopular candidates would drop out until there were 2-5 left for us to choose from. If we really needed it we could replace the endorsements from political parties (not just Democrats and Republicans, but the Right to Life party, the Working Families Party, the Marijuana Legalization Party, etc.) on the ballots with a short mission statement summing up their positions on a few key issues. Hopefully – eventually – in the absence of arbitrary side-picking, we’d actually learn that the point isn’t to elect the people who are most like us, but to elect the people who best uphold our constitution in such a way that it allows both ourselves and the people completely different from us to equally enjoy the freedom of being an American.

The Death of The Music Industry

Over the last few years I’ve heard a lot of discussion of “THE DEATH OF THE MUSIC INDUSTRY.” I’m a musician, but I’ve never been in the position where the music I’ve made was the source of my financial livelihood – it’s always been something I do for my own creative satisfaction, so my opinions on the matter are pretty idealistic. For me, putting out music for free has been the best way to ensure that it is heard by as many listeners as possible so that your audience can grow and eventually there will be enough demand that you can charge for your product. Since youtube, Pandora, file-sharing, and all the other ways that people acquire their musical/cultural fixes for free have become prevalent, I’ve landed pretty firmly on the side of the consumer. That is to say, “GOOD! Technology has made this art free – let THE INDUSTRY figure out another way to make money off of it.”

My Dad’s girlfriend, Diane, works in the advertising world. While visiting them recently, I was explaining that I’d released my album for free and was extolling the exaggerated belief that ALL music should be free – until Diane asked me a question that made me think.

“So if I use one of your songs in a commercial, I shouldn’t have to pay you for it?”

It’s funny how your stance on a scenario can depend so heavily on who you’re picturing in your mind as the characters. In my imagination, I was the consumer and some famous zillionaire rock star signed to a label that’s part of a guhjillion dollar corporate conglomerate was the product. They were already rich, and the fact that they’d expect anything at all from a regular dude like me seemed greedy. But in Diane’s scenario, the big corporation was the consumer, and the regular dude was the product – and let’s be clear, if she said she wanted to put one of my songs in a commercial, I’d try and get as much cash out of the deal as possible. So I realized, all it boiled down to was “corporations have too much money and individuals have too little, so the money and stuff should go where it’s needed.”

On the other hand…

I have lots and lots of friends who are musicians.  Most of them, like me, essentially make music for fun. But this year, for the first time, one of those friends has “made it” as a musician. In my younger days, the idea of “making it” meant buying your first mansion, driving a monster truck, marrying a Victoria’s Secret model and playing Arena shows. As a 30-year old, my idea of “making it” has changed. It’s still pretty sweet, actually. “Making it” means quitting your day job.

My friend’s band, who has been toiling in relative obscurity for nearly 10 years, has received recognition in the past year or two to the extent that they now play music -THEIR music – for a living. They tour the country, they are signed to a record label, they get guaranteed payments from the shows they play, and they are adored by thousands of attractive 20-somethings. They are not rich. In fact, they’re probably kind of poor, in the greater scheme of things – but to me, they’re living the dream. I’m proud of them. I know how hard they worked, and how hard they continue to work, to get where they are – and of course, their music’s great.

So now I think of my original scenario with the downloading/file-sharing/free music acquiring … and it feels wrong. When I picture my friends deciding what they can afford to eat for dinner tonight before their 5th night in a row of driving across the middle of the country in a van and sweating through their shirts in front of drunk strangers, the idea of someone somewhere choosing not to pay them for their work makes me angry. Don’t they know hard it is to do what my friends are doing?!

But then I picture Lars Ulrich, the drummer of Metallica, kufillionaire rock star, standing on the steps of a courthouse insisting that the crooks who illegally downloaded their music – the same people who made them rich and famous in the first place – be arrested. It’s hard to feel sympathy for that guy, or anything besides “fuck him…they haven’t made anything good since Master of Puppets anyway” for that matter. But I guess I get where he’s coming from. He worked for it too.

Regardless of what’s right and what’s wrong, and who’s an asshole and who’s entitled to what, the death of the music industry isn’t just about the amount of money rock stars can make, but the quality of the music that’s being released.  I was listening to a podcast today by comedian Bill Burr. He was talking about being mocked  for buying a DVD of a famous Black Sabbath concert that is available for free on youtube. In his own defense, he said

“If something’s that great you should pay for it…[if you acquire it for free], you can’t bitch about music today…That’s what happened to music.  It all became free, the whole industry collapsed – granted, it was a piece of shit industry that was fucking people over – but it could guide you to some pretty amazing artists. As much as there’s always been the Justin Biebers – ‘cuz there has been – like I’ve always said, when the Beatles were making albums, so was Herman’s Hermits. When they were making Rubber Soul, Herman was in a fucking studio down the hall singing “Henry the 8th” – so nothing has happened to music. What’s happened is the music industry has changed. I don’t know how Pink Floyd would do it nowadays without some giant machine to let everybody know that you’re out there.”

It hadn’t occurred to me before that the amount of money the music industry made and the quality of the music they produced were related, but it makes sense. THE REASON there’s more shit on the radio is … Shit sells and it always has! The difference now is, the music industry seems less willing to take risks.  For every Nirvana – a truly outside the box anomaly who swept the masses despite their venom against the system they’d become a part of – there were a thousand knock-offs, almost weres, and could have beens. In a business sense, those are misses. Losses. To avoid the risk in a down time, the industry’s focused with dead aim on the bubble-gum demographic because they’ve been their most reliable and easily brainwashable consumers since forever. But that doesn’t mean great, innovative music isn’t being made anymore.

No matter who’s making money they didn’t have before or losing money they did, music isn’t dying. Anyone who chooses not to pick up a guitar or a keyboard or sing a note because they no longer see the music industry as a viable career choice can go screw – we never wanted them in the game anyway. I’m certain there are just as many people making music now as there have ever been – maybe even more, given the advent of readily available FREE recording technology, user-friendly music-hosting websites like bandcamp and soundcloud, and of course, social networking out the wazoo to spread the word. Nearly anyone can make an album and release it to the public. It should be a wake-up call to the corporate conglomerates pining for the salad days that musicians will always make music and everyone else will always listen to music, and that has nothing to do with money. The supposed death of the music industry hasn’t prevented today’s Pink Floyd or Nirvana from forming and beginning their creative ascent…you just have to look a little harder to find them.